American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,100

forgets all this when she collides with Parson’s sofa at such a high speed that the frame completely cracks underneath her. Mona’s world fills with dust and unwashed pillow covers and the smell of old coffee. She feels her arms and legs flailing around as she tries to get her bearings, which is extremely difficult as the blood in her head is still swirling around like a whirlpool. When things slowly begin to resolve themselves around her, she blinks hard and starts to make out the form of someone standing over Parson, shoulders heaving with deep, angry breaths…

“What did you do to him?” demands Mrs. Benjamin. Her fists are clenched and her face is white with rage.

Mona doesn’t bother to answer. She remembers the Glock was digging into her pelvis, realizes it’s now lodged up under her back, and without a second’s thought she’s already reaching for it. Her fingers find the mouth of the Glock, and she whips the gun around while twirling it up in the air like a baton until its handle neatly falls into her waiting palm. She doesn’t think she could do that trick again even if she practiced.

Mona brings her other arm up to support the butt of the gun, but this is shockingly hard: not only is her head spinning and her neck aching with whiplash, her left shoulder is in incredible pain, and when she glances to see the cause of this she finds four red welts appearing on her upper arm.

They sort of look like finger marks, but small ones.

As Mona draws a bead on Mrs. Benjamin’s face, she tries to ignore the madly amused part of her mind that wonders if this quaint elderly woman just hurled her across the room with the speed and force of a driver being ejected from a rally car mid-lap.

“Stop right there,” says Mona. Her words are slurred.

“What have you done to him?” demands Mrs. Benjamin again.

“Stay where you are, goddamn it,” says Mona.

Mrs. Benjamin kneels to look at Parson.

“And don’t you fucking touch him!” Mona yells.

Mrs. Benjamin reaches out to touch Parson’s face. So Mona decides that now is a diplomatic moment to fire a warning shot.

Every ounce of her training screams against this. Popping off a round is a last resort, for a pistol firing live ammunition is not exactly a surgical, precise tool: bullets have a nasty tendency to ricochet, burst, or punch through walls. But Mona’s done a lot of things for the first time tonight—commit armed robbery, shoot a guy, etc.—so she decides, shit, why not add to the list.

She points the Glock at the handheld radio above both Mrs. Benjamin and Parson, takes a breath, and pulls the trigger.

The gesture achieves its intended effect: the gunfire cracks through the office, and immediately the radio shatters and slams against the office wall. Little pieces of plastic go flying, and Mrs. Benjamin’s hand stops in midair. She slowly turns to look at Mona, face fixed in an expression of utter outrage, as if Mona has just spilled coffee all over her carpet or shown up in casual clothes to a formal-only affair.

“What do you think you are doing?” she demands in a quiet voice.

“Stand up,” Mona says. She puts the sights back on Mrs. Benjamin. “And get away from him.”

Mrs. Benjamin glowers at her. The radio is still trying to work: one speaker dangles from it by a rainbow of wires, and the Sons of the Pioneers are just finishing up their song in a sputtering, stuttering chorus.

“Lady,” says Mona, “I don’t miss twice.”

Mrs. Benjamin slowly stands and steps away from Parson. She glares at Mona before asking, “What are you doing here?”

“I’d ask the same of you.”

She sniffs. “I merely came to discuss a personal matter.”

“So did I.”

“And your discussion resulted in this?” scoffs Mrs. Benjamin. “I doubt it.”

“I don’t have the damnedest idea what did that,” says Mona.

Mrs. Benjamin appears a little troubled to hear this. “What did he say to you?”

“If you think I’m going to tell you, you’re out of your damn mind.”

“Why?” asks Mrs. Benjamin, affronted.

“Well, for starters, you just”—she pauses, not wanting to give voice to the ridiculous idea that she was thrown—“attacked me.”

“I did not attack you, my dear,” says Mrs. Benjamin, who appears very calm for someone who has a gun in their face. “I merely removed your person to a safer distance.”

“Yeah,” says Mona. “At about forty miles an hour. How the hell you did that, I don’t know. But worse…”

“Worse